Honor and Cruelty
by Siamesa
Summary: The beginning of the war- and the comet's effects on a novice, a soldier, and a noblewoman. ON HIATUS UNTIL I GET USED TO SCHOOL.
1. Prologue: The Lady

The Lady

The Lady

Somewhere in some dusty archive of the courts is a scroll marked "The Confession of Kuzon the Deserter." And all of it is a lie.

It wasn't me he lied for. He would never lie for me. He'd never met me. He was just my fiancé, who'd decided to bring dishonor on his family- dishonor on me, from which I never recovered- by deserting the Fire Nation army in its moment of greatest triumph.

Deserting me- a lady of the court, a fine match- and leaving me to a life of shame.

Not all shame. I married for love, but to a man so far below my station. I suppose by deserting, Kuzon freed me.

Freed me to spit on his grave. I chose a butler instead of you, and you chose a peasant instead of me.

And never even told me. No, he lied to everyone- to the courts, to the nation, to the army- and left everyone to believe that he was a traitor, but a traitor alone.

And then I found this. A letter she'd sent me.

I suppose she's dead. I hope it was some slow disease, eating away at her, slower than the execution my once-fiancé suffered.

I suppose I should open the letter, now, decades after it was sent. It's just a scrap of paper- so easy to burn. But I won't.

I'm dying myself, a gray haired grandmother, in a little cottage near Azulon's palace.

This letter can be buried with me.


	2. The Letter

The Letter

The Letter

I suppose I'll tell you a story, the way he told me. It hurts less, sometimes, if it's a story.

He said you were pretty, and that your name was Yaki. That was all he knew about you, though. I just want to tell you that. How can you break a promise you never made, and that was made to the parents of someone you barely know?

I suppose it was wrong. But we were happy, and he is dead.

But I will tell you a story…

Once upon a time there was a girl. She lived at a temple, and she had friends and pets and happiness.

And there was a boy. He was strong and kind and went to war against the temple where the girl lived…

"Youch!"

Miyam backed off from her friend nervously. "Sorry, I didn't realize they still hurt."

The shorter girl glared at her, her eyebrows slanting under the blue arrow. "I just got tattooed yesterday, and they aren't supposed to still hurt?"

The third girl in the group spoke up, laughing. "Mine didn't. Maybe something's wrong with you, Pi."

Pi glared, putting her hands on her hips and standing silhouetted in front of the garden fountain, her new arrow. "Nothing's wrong with me."

The third girl smirked. "Sure there isn't. You've just got the pain threshold of a lemur kit."

Miyam sighed. "So, I guess I'm the only novice now."

Her friends didn't respond. Pi lobbed an air ball at the girl who'd been teasing her, and suddenly they were running off, shrieking in a way that did not become Masters.

Miyam rubbed the skin on her forehead. She was almost nineteen- still young. She had time. Sure, there'd been a boy at the Southern temple who'd become a Master at twelve, and yes, she was the only novice remaining amongst her small group of friends- but she was also the youngest of them.

It was just hard to watch what seemed like everyone else at the Eastern temple move ahead of her.

Sighing again, Miyam leaned on the stone railing over the courtyard, trailing one arm melodramatically in front of her and tracing a breeze through the air with it.

A few younger novices- real children- were laughing in the courtyard below her as they played some game of tag. She could see a few bison flying languorously around the stable pavilion, and as the scene quieted she heard a slight wail from the nursery in it's building nearby.

Miyam smiled. She would go meditate, and then perhaps she'd go see her tutors for some more training in technique.

Arrow tattoos, here I come…

-

Miyam sat cross-legged on a hill just outside the temple boundaries. A few cherry trees grew nearby, and she could hear the lilting calls of sparrowkeets from the woods behind her. It was her favorite meditation spot, away from the temple, just where the faltering sea breeze from the out-of-sight ocean met the growing mountains.

Miyam tried to lose herself in the breeze, becoming light, airy, disconnected. She could fly over the world, just her and the grasslands and the mountains. She could fly over the sea.

The novice slowed her breathing, inhaling the scents of the woodland and the temple, even the perfume that her friends had spilled on her.

Her next breath was full of smoke.


	3. The Soldier

A/N: The Kuzon in this story is not the one Aang mentioned as his old friend

**A/N: The Kuzon in this story is not the one Aang mentioned as his old friend. It's apparently a common Fire Nation name, and it seemed to fit my character. **

**Also, I do not own Avatar.**

Kuzon gripped the railing of the ship. He was an officer through family connections only- he had less battle experience than most of the men under his command. Thankfully there were only a few of them. His superior, a boy younger than himself, had to watch over almost a hundred soldiers.

And all he could talk about was that they had more facial hair. Kuzon had really started to mistrust his commander.

His men, the young man decided, would not mistrust him. He smoothed a hand through his short black hair, and breathed in the salty air around him.

The warship was at anchor. Just out of site was the Eastern temple of the Air Nomads.

The young nobleman turned away from the rail and headed below deck to his men. They were lined up against a bulkhead, ready for his orders.

Kuzon swallowed hard.

"Now," he said, as gruffly as he could. "The comet- our Fire Lord's comet- is coming. It will give us enough power to wipe out our enemies and destroy the traitorous Avatar. We don't know where he is- but these are his allies. He could very well be hidden in this temple, and for the glory and honor of our Nation we will strike!"

The eighteen year old boy breathed in once heavily, and then carefully put on his helmet, lowering the skull visor and adjusting his shoulder spikes.

The gangplank lowered, and Kuzon gasped at the sight. The comet was just coming into view, a bolt of orange against an otherwise colorless sky. A wave of power seemed to boil Kuzon's veins and expand through his chest.

An enormous flame from the young officer's hand split the air in front of him as if to imitate the comet, and his men disembarked the ship marched towards the Air Temple.

-

Most of the other ships had been ahead of theirs, and flames were starting to spread. The thick forest on either side of the temple was aflame.

The heat attacked Kuzon through his armor and helmet, and the boy began to sweat, both with heat and nervousness.

Kill, thought the boy as he continued his even march forward. I will have to kill today.

But the nomads were their enemies- they were harboring the Avatar at one of their temples. And Fire Lord Sozin, whose word was more than law, had decreed their death.

As the small group marched over a rise in the land, the sprawling Eastern Temple rose up before them.

"ATTACK!" shouted someone ahead of them, and Kuzon and his group began to run. His feet and his heart pounded in his ears as he blasted flame out of his hands to help him jump onto a low wall around a blazing garden.

Screams began to pierce through his helmet. The wails of women and children. The young man froze, staring at the scene in front of him, not a glorious battle but an almost one-sided slaughter.

There were children there. How could children harbor a traitor?

There were babies.

At that, bile rose in Kuzon's throat.

And he fled.


	4. The Forest

**I don't own Avatar. **

_Her next breath was full of smoke…_

Miyam gasped as the unexpected burning feeling her throat, closing her eyes and coughing raggedly. She squinted her eyes open for a second, then shut them fast as the acrid air burned at them. _Everything was the wrong color…_

She slumped slightly onto the grass in front of her, sending her hair, already slipping out of its neat braid, down around her face. The smell wouldn't leave her throat and nostrils, and as she opened her eyes the world seemed to expand horribly.

A dull screaming roar hit her ears, melding with a darkened, orange-tinted view- her home in flames.

_This wasn't possible._

A numbness spread from her heart and stomach. The only fear the girl had known was of small things- an insect in her room, her first bison ride, the threat of never becoming a Master.

She was not prepared for real fear.

_Pirates. Rogues. Firebenders._

_Sozin. Sozin and his colonies…_

For a second, her scream defined her existence.

-

Miyam did not understand how she was in the woods now. There had been nothing but running for hours, maybe, running and screaming and breathing in smoke. It was a hazy dream in her mind. Had she been running through the woods?

The girl had no glider, no weapons, just the ash-stained orange clothes on her back.

She was stranded out here.

_It didn't matter._

She lay on the ground, trying to achieve the feeling of nothingness that had been there when she was running. It wouldn't come.

_They're dead. _

For some reason her mind focused on Pi's lemur, who had just had kits.

"Pi?"

It was barely a whisper. Maybe her friends had escaped. Maybe anyone had- the people she'd "hated", the children, the grumpy Masters… Anyone.

Miyam closed her eyes and breathed. A small breeze blew dust from the forest floor onto her face. It was almost comforting. A blanket of silky sand.

She could just lie here, perhaps, forever.

It was then that someone touched her hand.

-

He was an idiot.

It was _battle. _You didn't run from _battle._ Even when there wasn't an opposing army. You should kill your best friend if the Fire Lord ordered you to. Your son.

How could everything he'd been taught just disappear like that?

He should go back. That thought never had a chance. He would not go back. That was the act of a coward as much as running away had been.

Honor demanded he turn himself in for punishment- perhaps they'd grant mercy- no.

There was the Fire Lord's honor, thought Kuzon, and then there was personal honor. And it was not honorable to slaughter a temple of women and children, and it was not honorable to turn himself in and abide by the Fire Lord's honor once again.

But what had he done?

In a single move, by running away, he'd brought shame on everyone back home who should've been proud to know him.

He'd failed as an officer, as a son, as a brother. As a fiancée.

Kuzon glared at the trees surrounding him. Behind him, if he looked (which he wouldn't, he was sure of it) he could've seen the orange glow of the burning temple against the darkening sky.

The boy focused his eyes solely on the path in front of him, as the woods thinned and came out into a meadow. His eyes remained on the well-trodden path. Dirt and pebbles. Dirt and pebbles. His world could just be dirt and pebbles.

That course of action was effective until he spotted the girl. A broken tangle of orange cloth and black hair, collapsed by the side of the road.

Exhaustion, thought Kuzon. She must've fled the battle.

An Air Nomad, then. But no tattoos.

He couldn't leave her there, could he?

With a grunt, the young man bent down and lifted the girl. She was still breathing, in rough, slow sighs.

The hero, thought Kuzon, carrying the maiden away from the monsters and to his castle and kingdom.

It appeared he would fail as a hero, too. The combination of human deadweight and armor was wearing him down. The sun was going down, and the horrible comet had vanished, but the day was still humid, and there wasn't a breeze.

The former soldier placed the girl down in a clearing. _I'll wait 'till she wakes up, then. I'll help her._

-

Miyam opened her eyes and took in a breath of horror, staring at the Fire Nation soldier in front of her.

_I'm a prisoner,_ she thought.

_Well, not for long._

**Reviews? Thoughts? Did you enjoy it so far? Or are all my characters horrendous Mary-Sues? Or somewhere in between?**


	5. The Clearing

I still don't own Avatar

**I still don't own Avatar. **

The girl's eyes had opened. Kuzon would've been relieved if they hadn't been trained on him with such hatred.

The former officer spread his arms in a gesture of peace, palms raised.

The Air Nomad leaned forward and tried to punch him, collapsing onto the stony ground of the clearing. A faltering breeze swept in from behind her, battering the boy.

This was definitely not a part of any of the old hero legends.

"I come in peace," gasped Kuzon, the wind battering his face. _Flameo, that sounded stupid…_

Miyam felt a small burst of pride at the expression on the soldier's face. _I've scared him._

He babbled something about peace, but the girl did not relent. _Peace_ was not a word, she thought, that that man should dare to speak.

"Please!" gasped the man. She couldn't even see his face- a skull visor blocked it. It was easy to pretend he wasn't human, thought Miyam. Because he wasn't. He was a monster. All of them were.

She didn't even know why they had come.

At that hopeless thought, Miyam felt much of her strength desert her. Rage couldn't sustain power for long in any bending discipline, and especially in air. The whirlwind she had created began to waver as black spots began to block out her vision.

Kuzon felt the horrible air pressure around him begin to subside, the flying leaves fall gently to the ground. The already collapsed bender in front of him was clearly on her last legs.

"I'm not- with them- anymore," pleaded Kuzon desperately. Was this what being a traitor was- despised by everyone, even those you now sided with?

Gray eyes glared furiously but weakly at him. The Firebender risked a few steps forward, until he was beside the girl. He touched her shoulder, and she jerked away. _Okay, Kuzon, bad move._

"I just want to help you up."

As he lifted the woman into a sitting position- this had not become easier, he noticed- he saw that she was crying. Part of him- the part that was still the chivalrous, undoubted Fire Noble, wanted to wipe the tears off of her face. As she grabbed his hand furiously, the part of his brain that prided itself on living in the real world reminded him that this girl was not some lady at a party, or some maiden in a tale.

He was _not_ the brave hero.

"Scum," hissed the Airbender, as if to drive this point home. Her nails dug into his hand, almost breaking the skin. The tears were flowing faster down her face now.

"Yes," whispered Kuzon.

**I'm very sorry this was a short chapter. It just doesn't really fit in with the next (which is long).**


End file.
